This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 2004-58364, filed on Jul. 26, 2004, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical module including an optical waveguide, and more particularly, to a method of fabricating a polymer waveguide with a high passive alignment to an optical fiber in an optical module with the polymer waveguide.
2. Description of the Related Art
An optical module is a key component for an optical communication apparatus for the conversion between an optical signal and an electrical signal. The demand for such an optical module is rapidly increased along with the demand for internet rapidly increasing. The optical module may be classified into three types. For example, there are a optical transmit module for converting electrical signals to optical signals, a optical receive module for receiving transmitted optical signals and converting to electrical signals, and a optical transmit and receive module for combining the functions of the optical transmit module and the optical receive module and performing the functions in one module.
Recently, a study is actively processed on a high reliability, a high speed, and a high capacity of an optical module, and also, a study is actively processed on a low cost of an optical module. As one of the studies to realize the low cost of an optical module, are proposed methods of fabricating an optical module using a flat type optical waveguide circuit to save the cost of optical alignment.
The optical module using a planar optical waveguide includes a region where an optical waveguide is formed, a region where an active device such as a laser diode or a photo diode is mounted, and a region where an optical fiber is coupled with the optical waveguide.
A method of fabricating an optical module using a planar optical waveguide includes a process of forming a platform having an optical waveguide region, an optical active element mounting region, and an optical fiber coupling region on a substrate. Thus, an integral type optical module is proposed. The method of fabricating the integral type optical module is expected to reduce the number of elements used in the module, and to realize the automatization and the low-cost products through a passive alignment.
Most of the integral type optical modules which have been proposed up to now are the case of using a silica waveguide. The method of fabricating the optical module using the silica waveguide includes forming a core layer and clad layers for the silica waveguide on a substrate, and forming a V-shaped groove or etching the portions where active elements are mounted.